5-21435-2

 Jimmy Smith - Six View Of The Blues

Released - 1999

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, July 16, 1958
Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Art Blakey, drums #1-3; Donald Bailey, drums #4-6.

tk.3 St. Louis Blues
tk.8 The Swingin' Shepherd Blues
tk.9 Blues No. 1
tk.10 Blues No. 2
tk.14 Blues No. 3
tk.16 Blues No. 4

Track Listing

Title	Author	Recording Date
St Louis Blues	W. C. Handy	July 16 1958
The Swingin' Shepherd Blues	Moe Koffman	July 16 1958
Blues No. 1	Jimmy Smith	July 16 1958
Blues No. 3	Jimmy Smith	July 16 1958
Blues No. 4	Jimmy Smith	July 16 1958
Blues No. 2	Jimmy Smith	July 16 1958

Liner Notes

THIS was Jimmy Smith's 19th recording session for Blue Note since he'd joined the label 29 month earlier. Jimmy Smith had revolutionized the sound and the use of the organ in jazz and he became incredibly popular very quickly. Fortunately for Blue Note, he was also prolific. Still the label couldn't get sessions out fast enough. Jimmy and producer Alfred Lion seemed to settle on four basic rotating contexts in which to record: Smith's working trio (studio and live), an all-star trio (usually Kenny Burrell and Art Blakey), a quartet with Lou Donaldson (later Stanley Turrentine) and jam sessions with three-horn front lines made up of Blue Note regulars like Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Curtis Fuller, Donaldson, Jackie McLean, George Coleman, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley and Ike Quebec.

This session, issued now for the first time, is somewhat different in two respects. While it wasn't unusual for ringer Art Blakey and Jimmy's regular drummer Donald Bailey to split the drum chores (as they do here), it was unusual for the single horn to be anyone but Lou Donaldson. The choice of baritone saxophone in general and Cecil Payne in particular was an odd one. An excellent player, Cecil, for some reason, was not a Blue Note regular. In fact, he'd only appeared on the 1948 James Moody sides, when both men were in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, and on Kenny Dorham's 1955 album Afro-Cuban. And after the session in hand/ he only appeared one more time on a 1961 Tadd Dameron session, which has just been issued on the CD, The Lost Sessions. Perhaps the idea was Burrell's, who'd featured Cecil on his Prestige album Blue Moods the year before. At any rate, this was a peak period for Payne who was in the middle of a long tenure with pianist-composer Randy Weston. It's great to hear him stretch out in this context.

What's even more unusual is the choice of material. Though Jimmy Smith was a fiery blues player who practically created the chitlin circuit of the fifties, he was a fully-equipped jazz artist as likely to play a Monk tune, a be-bop line or an old standard as a soulful blues. His records always reflected his range. Yet this session is an all-blues program, which may be why it was passed over for release over the years. Another reason may have been sonic; each time Cecil Payne finished soloing, engineer Rudy Van Gelder would close his microphone, which changed the sound of the recording abruptly.

Nonetheless, Smith and his superb cast find infinite variety and creative inspiration in the blues form. Art Blakey is present for the first half of the session, which opens with a relaxed reading of the 1914 W.C. Handy tune "St. Louis Blues".

The next piece was "The Swingin' Shepherd Blues," a left field 1958 hit by Canadian flutist Moe Koffman. This was such an inescapable record at the time that every saxophonist was looking through his closet to find his flute. There were dozens of cover versions, and Buddy Collette even organized a group called Four Swingin' Shepherds with Bud Shank, Paul Horn, Harry Klee and the leader all playing different sized flutes. Fortunately, Jimmy and Alfred had the sense and good taste to do a version without flute. This track was issued on Blue Note 45-1711.

Blakey's last tune was the first of four Jimmy Smith blues, a relaxed, medium-up blues with a great walking bass line courtesy of Smith's feet.

Donald Bailey, a Philadelphian who'd joined Smith's trio in time for the organist's second Blue Note session in March 1956, completes the date. Bailey stayed with Smith until well into 1 963, when he settled in Los Angeles where he later joined The Three Sounds and pianist Jack Wilson's trio. Besides freelancing heavily on drums, he also eventually developed a second career playing harmonica.

Jimmy seems intent with his originals on showing and exploring the variety that the blues form has to offer. Blues No. 2 has a shuffle feel; Blues No.3 is in the great slow blues tradition that Smith set with "The Sermon" and Blues No. 4 is a fast, modern bop line with some blistering organ.

This may not be the most earth-shattering of Jimmy Smith's 31 recording sessions for Blue Note, but it is a delightful addition to his incredible and influential legacy at the label. Anytime Smith and Burrell get together (and they still do!), it's a delightful musical experience. And hearing Cecil Payne in this relaxed blues context is an added bonus.

—MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 1999

8-21282-2

Jimmy Smith - Standards

Released - 1998

Recording and Session Information

Manhattan Towers, NYC, August 25, 1957
Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.6 Little Girl Blue

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, July 15, 1958
Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.2 Bye Bye Blackbird
tk.3 September Song
tk.10 Just A Lucky So And So
tk.14 Ruby

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 24, 1959
Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.1 It Might As Well Be Spring
tk.2 Mood Indigo
tk.4 While We're Young
tk.6 I Didn't Know What Time It Was
tk.9 But Beautiful
tk.10 The Last Dance
tk.13 Memories Of You

Track Listing

Title	Author	Recording Date
Little Girl Blue	R. Rodgers-L. Hart	August 25 1957
Bye Bye Blackbird	M. Dixon-R. Henderson	July 15 1958
I'm Just A Lucky So And So	D. Ellington-M David	July 15 1958
Ruby	H. Roemheld-M. Parish	July 15 1958
September Song	K. Weill-M. Anderson	July 15 1958
I Didn't Know What Time It Was	R. Rodgers-L. Hart	May 24 1959
Memories Of You	A. Razaf-E. Blake	May 24 1959
But Beautiful	J. Burke-J. Van Heusen	May 24 1959
Mood Indigo	B. Bigard-D. Ellington	May 24 1959
While We're Young	Wilder-Palitz-Engvick	May 24 1959
It Might As Well Be Spring	R. Rodgers-O.Hammerstein	May 24 1959
The Last Dance	Jimmy Smith	May 24 1959

Liner Notes

THIS is not your typical Jimmy Smith collection. Fans of the speaker-rattling, gutbucket-blues-blowing, chicken-shack-having Jimmy Smith may be surprised. This is a mellow, blacktie, date-night, smooth-as-silk affair, Jimmy Smith romancing the Standards with an élan and diffidence that perfectly captures the uptown style of nightclubbing in the late 1950s, back when folks got dressed up, made an entrance, and expected elegant service; Jimmy Smith delivers.

For those not familiar with his biography, Jimmy Smith comes from Norristown, PA., but studied music in Philadelphia, one of the major centers for the development of the Hammond organ sound (the city produced Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff and Charles Earland, among others). Like most organ players, he started out on piano, and amazingly, only switched to the Hammond three years before his recording debut. He created an immediate sensation when he seemed to burst onto the national jazz scene in 1 956 by way of his first Blue Note recordings. His style was light-years ahead of the big chordal organ players that had preceded him, with a pianistic-fast right hand and a great solid groove coming from the foot pedals that redefined the instrument and made bass players irrelevant in organ groups from that moment on.

Jimmy Smith was totally self-taught on the Hammond. He didn't start on the instrument until he was in his late twenties, and then, as legend has it, he locked himself in the woodshed for three months, and when he emerged, he emerged full-blown. He is the Charlie Parker of the organ; after him, there was no looking back. On this album, however, he often does look back, returning to the classic chordal sound (with wide vibrato) that has defined jazz organ playing since the mid 1940s. For example, his solo on "But Beautiful" is heartbreaking in both its nostalgia and melodic qualities. Yet it is very clear that he has moved beyond the historic cliché or the facile pianistic approach, using many subtle shadings and hues of nuance, available by way of the various draw bars, volume pedal and chorus settings, to achieve a totally unique and very modern approach to the organ.

As Jimmy Smith's recording career developed throughout the fifties and sixties, he seemed to become type cast by the many jam sessions he lead, a kind of musical ringmaster of spirited blowing dates. Often, he recorded the blues—fast blues, slow blues, groove blues, all kinds of blues—mixed with bebop tunes, primarily those that were current at informal get-togethers everywhere. These blowing dates would usually feature one or more guest soloists, and a single tune would occasionally take up an entire side of an album, a bold statement in the 50s when time was of the essence. But as we hear on these lovely ballads and bounce tunes, there is a controlled, "tipping" side of Jimmy Smith that is every bit as captivating.

It should be noted that this collection is as much a feature for Kenny Burrell as it is for Smith. The guitarist takes the lead on many of the songs and provides the steady 4/4 comping—derived, perhaps, from Freddie Green's work with Basie — that is a touchstone of the organ trio as pioneered by Jimmy Smith; Burrell's solos are uniformly wonderful, with a relaxed, quiet kind of drama. Drummer Donald Bailey, another homeboy from Philadelphia, really has got the sweetest job in town, just sitting there, mixing the salad in the background. Altogether, the atmosphere created on this record is one of total relaxation, an almost haunted sense of peace.

So this collection truly does set the Standard for Jimmy Smith: the songs are familiar, maybe even traditional, and everything about the organ player raises the bar for all who dare to follow.

—BEN SIDRAN

3-85192-2

Jimmy Smith - Straight Life

Released - 2007

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 22, 1961
Jimmy Smith, organ; Quentin Warren, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.3 Here's To My Lady
tk.7 Straight Life
tk.9 Stuffy
tk.10 Minor Fare
tk.12 Minor Fare (alternate take)
tk.14 Star Dust
tk.15 Jimmy's Blues
tk.16 Swanee
tk.17 Sweet Sue, Just You
tk.18 Yes Sir, That's My Baby

Track Listing

Title	Author	Recording Date
Straight Life	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Stuffy	Coleman Hawkins	June 22 1961
Star Dust	H. Carmichael-M. Parish	June 22 1961
Sweet Sue, Just You	V. Young-W. J. Harris	June 22 1961
Minor Fare	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Swanee	G. Gershwin-I. Caesar	June 22 1961
Jimmy's Blues	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Yes Sir, That's My Baby	G. Kahn-W. Donaldson	June 22 1961
Here's To My Lady	J. Mercer-R. Bloom	June 22 1961
Minor Fare (Alt Tk)	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961

Liner Notes

Jimmy Smith began his Blue Note association with a date done on February 18, 1956. He completed his contractual obligations to Blue Note With four albums (I'm Movin' On, Bucket, Rockin' the Boat, and Prayer Meetin') done in a nine-day period in January and February 1963. While he recorded for the label again many years later, it is this first Blue Note period that is generally considered to contain his greatest work.

His recording for the label was in distinctly settings, either: l) an guitar & drums trio — his working instrumentation, or 2) sessions involving a guest horn player (Percy France, Lou Donaldson, or Stanley Turrentine), or 3) jam sessions with several horns. There were no big band albums for Blue Note.

Roughly half the output was trio and Straight Life is the last trio album to see release. It is the only Jimmy Smith recording from 1961 and, with its 1962 companion Jimmy Smith plays Fats Waller, the only Jimmy Smith Blue Note recording between the spring of 1960 and the final four recordings for the label. This particular trio With Quentin Warren and Donald Bailey first appeared on Crazy Baby, the best-selling of all the Jimmy Smith trio albums, in 1960.

Organ groups operated well beneath the radar of jazz critics during the 1950s & '60s. So while Quentin Warren was a part of the Jimmy Smith trio for six or seven years, there is no biographical entry on him in any edition of The Encyclopedia Of Jazz. It is known that he came from Washington D. C. and that he returned there upon leaving Jimmy Smith. Warren followed Thornel Schwartz and Eddie McFadden and, like his predecessors, is a master of the comp: the fills that aid the rhythmic impetus of the soloist.

Donald Bailey (b. 3/26/34) is a Philadelphian who joined the Jimmy Smith Trio shortly after its formation. Bailey was an important part of what made Jimmy Smith so successful and he played on all the Jimmy Smith Blue Note albums except the first one (and whenever Art Blakey was part of a jam session group). Bailey's playing is propulsive without dominating — a perfect approach for Jimmy Smith. He continued to be part of the Jimmy Smith group and recorded with him as late as 1968. By that time he had moved to Los Angeles where he worked with Jack Wilson and Gene Harris, among many others. He has continued to play in Los Angeles where he remains one of the major players in town.

There was no R&B (or Soul) Album chart in Billboard until 1965, and at the time of this recording Jimmy Smith had yet to attain the astonishing success that would be his in the next Few years. But Midnight Special was released and was selling at a pace greater than anything Blue Note had experienced in the past. In March 1962, Jimmy Smith had been "loaned" to Verve to make his Bashin' album. Once Jimmy Smith had experienced the promotional effort and publicity push of a big label, there was no turning back. In April of 1962, Midnight Special hit the Billboard Pop Album chart and Bashin' would follow in July, ultimately making the ten. From that point forward, the emphasis would on recording hits. And Jimmy Smith delivered. Jimmy Smith would put eighteen albums on either the Pop or Album charts in the next six years. He would become the best-selling jazz artist of the 1960s. Nobody else was close.

Straight Life comes from a different time. It comes before the huge success, the big hits, and the national celebrity. It involves Jimmy Smith making a trio record, with his guys, playing some unlikely tunes, in his own special way. It was more than forty-five years ago and it is good to have it, finally.

— BOB PORTER, WBGO

BNJ-50101

Jimmy Smith - Special Guests

Released - 1984

According to the Kohji Matsubayashi's excellent microgroove site, this album was released to coincide with Jimmy Smith's Japan tour.

Recording and Session Information

Manhattan Towers, NYC, August 25, 1957
Lee Morgan, trumpet #1; Curtis Fuller, trombone #2; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar #1; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.8 'S Wonderful
tk.9 Blue Room

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 13, 1960
Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Quentin Warren, guitar; Sam Jones, bass; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.2 Smith Walk
tk.3 Lonesome Road

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 31, 1963
Jimmy Smith, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.7 Organic Greenery (aka Blues For Little Jim)
tk.17 Day In, Day Out

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Smith Walk	Jimmy Smith	June 13 1960
Lonesome Road	Austin-Shilkret	June 13 1960
Blue Room	L. Hart-R. Rodgers	August 25 1957
Side Two
S Wonderful	Gershwin-Gershwin	August 25 1957
Organic Greenery	Jimmy Smith	January 31 1963
Day In, Day Out	Mercer-Bloom	January 31 1963

Liner Notes

The Blue Note vaults are still rich in unissued material. Probably no artist was more prolific than Jimmy Smith with 32 issued albums and more than 7 more in the can. Most of the unissued material features Smith's regular trio, often with Lou Donaldson added. But his album brings together the best of the remaining unissued albums, all special collaborations with other artists.

Like Smith, Stanley Turrentine is a total player who can serve up funky blues and soulful ballads with a sophistication and intelligence that never betray his big-toned earthy feeling. His range has allowed him to adapt to any musical situation without ever losing a shred of his musical identity. And that's no easy feat when you consider that his own albums have covered a wide spectrum and that his sideman appearances included albums with Max Roach, Smith, Horace Parlan and one magnificent encounter with tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec (Congo Lament, Blue Note LT-1089).

The first musical meeting of Turrentine and Smith on April 15, 1960 produced the albums Midnight Special, Back At The Chicken Shack and one tune of On The Sunny Side. By dramatic comparison, the version of June 13, presented on this album, produced only "Smith Walk and "Lonesome Road". A third title, "Organic Greenery" was attempted but never realized. The low yield may have resulted from a bass in the group. Smith, who had attempted to record with a bass only once before, is the undisputed master of the organ's bass foot pedals. They are so integral to his playing that the restriction of not using them may have slowed his normal pace of output. Or perhaps it was one of those days where everyone's energy peaked early.

Nonetheless, we are treated to another 16 minutes of fine Smith-Turrentine interaction, with an added element of interest in the presence of the late bassist Sam Jones. It would be another two and a half years before Jimmy and Stanley would record their final collaboration, issued as Prayer Meetin'. That February 8, 1963 session would also be Jimmy's last for Blue Note.

A week prior to that final session, on January 31 1963, the organist documented his only recorded meeting with the late Grant Green, the ubiquitous, brilliant resident guitarist at Blue Note. It seems surprising in the Blue Note system of rotating players like a repertory company that this ideal combination would not have occurred before 1963. But Smith seemed to have standing policy of recording with his working guitarists, deviating from it only occasionally to use Kenny Burrell, which whom he had a long relationship.

Fortunately, someone spotted the oversight of such a logical pairing during Jimmy's final dates for the label. The result was the album I'm Movin' On (a rather ironic title in light of Smith's label switch at the time) and two more tunes which are included here: "Day In, Day Out" and "Organic Greenery". (It is a strange coincidence that this blues would share an album with the session done two and a half years earlier at which it was first attempted.) In clarity, power, versatility and imagination, Green and Smith were perfectly matched equals. We sure could have used a lot more of them playing together.

Jimmy Smith recorded four marathon sextet jam sessions for Blue Note, three of which offered a front line of trumpet, alto sax and tenor sax. But for the second jam, on August 25, 1957, trombone replaced the tenor. The trombonist was Curtis Fuller, who in the space of five weeks would have the distinction of being the only trombone soloist to record with Jimmy Smith, Bud Powell and John Coltrane in the same year, he also recorded four albums of his own for Blue Note. A few years later, he founded the Jazztet with Benny Golson and then made Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers into a sextet. He has continued to be one of the strongest trombonists and composers in modern jazz.

Fuller's feature is "Blue Room", supported only by organ and drums. The regular trio reassembles for Lee Morgan's sparkling performance of "'S Wonderful". Alto saxophonist George Coleman, the third horn did not have a feature spot, but the output of the session was enormous. The sextet with Eddie McFadden and Kenny Burrell trading off on guitar made five lengthy titles that have been issued on The Sermon, House Party and Confirmation. (Incidentally the drum chair on the two tunes on Confirmation was mistakenly credited to Art Blakey instead of Donald Bailey). In addition, a trio feature for Kenny Burrell appeared on On The Sunny Side.

If that ain't a day's work in itself, the three horns had already recorded Lee Morgan's City Lights album earlier that afternoon!

The unifying fabric throughout the three sessions on this album is, of course, Jimmy Smith. Also everpresent is the solid, tasty sparkplug drumming of Donald Bailey. After freelancing in his native Philadelphia in the early fifties with such locals as Lee Morgan, he joined the original Jimmy Smith trio is September, 1955 and remained until the end of 1963 when he settled ion Los Angeles. There he freelanced with Gerald Wilson, Joe Pass, Jack Wilson, Gene Ammons and others and worked regularly at various times with Hampton Hawes, The Three Sounds and the Harold-Land-Bobby Hutcherson quintet. In the seventies, he reportedly began plying harmonica as well as drums and working more commercial venues.

Eddie McFadden worked the rhythm and blues circuit out of Philadelphia until January, 1957 when he replaced original member Thornel Schwartz in Smith's trio. After his departure in 1959, he worked frequently with organist Johnny Hammond Smith in the early and mid sixties. His replacement Quentin Warren stayed through 1963 and possibly longer, but ultimately dropped out of music professionally.

Times change for better and for worse. If you tried to put together artists of the stature represented here today, the lawyers would burn up the phone lines and generate 20 reams of paper. And if it ever got to the studio, the managers would outnumber the musicians.

-MICHAEL CUSCUNA

BNJ-61013

Jimmy Smith Trio + LD

Released - February 21,1985

Recording and Session Information

Manhattan Towers, NYC, July 4, 1957
Lou Donaldson, alto sax #3-7; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.4 Cha Cha J.
tk.5 'Round Midnight
tk.6 Street Of Dreams
tk.7 Star Eyes
tk.8 Darn That Dream
tk.9 Soft Winds
tk.14 Hollerin' And Screamin'

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Soft Winds	Benny Goodman	July 4 1957
Hollerin' And Screamin'	Jimmy Smith	July 4 1957
Round Midnight	Thelonious Monk	July 4 1957
Side Two
Star Eyes	Raye-De Paul	July 4 1957
Darn That Dream	De Lange-Van Heusen	July 4 1957
Street Of Dreams	Lewis-Young	July 4 1957
Cha Cha J	Jimmy Smith	July 4 1957

Liner Notes

Those who are familiar with Blue Note listing know the story of Jimmy Smith's coming to the label. Babs Gonzales was his first manager and the man who set up the meeting with Alfred Lion in January, 1956.

It was not so much an audition as it was a public performance. Smith was playing his first New York engagement at a Harlem nightclub, Small's Paradise. It is instructive to remember this because Harlem is where the interest in jazz organ really took root.

Wild Bill Davis was the first major organ soloist. He was followed by three players with similar roots: Milt Buckner, Bill Doggett and Sir Charles Thompson. All three were leaders and arrangers and fine, individual pianists. There were others who didn't record but who worked the clubs and lounges along the Eastern seaboard. Cootie Williams was a popular Black bandleader who was using organ in his groups (at the Savoy Ballroom) as early as 1949.

The opportunity to hear these players around Philadelphia was easy for Smith. Many of them had roots in Philadelphia (which also developed Jackie Davis, Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff and Charles Earland), and there were several clubs in Philadelphia that featured organ combos. At the time Smith made the change to playing organ himself, he was working with Don Gardner, the singer and bandleader.

The qualities that made Jimmy Smith the second major soloist on organ are twofold. Unlike Davis, whose style was heavily chordal, Smith emphasized lightning-fast single note lines. In addition, his firm, walking basslines were the envy of all other organists. This particular aspect of his playing was truly revolutionary.

Alfred Lion was immediately taken with Jimmy Smith. His working trios were recorded quickly and frequently. The jam sessions followed, as did his sessions with singers. Finally, in the 1960s, came the classic meetings with Stanley Turrentine. But this early period obviously included a lot of experimentation.

Exactly how and under what circumstances this particular session came together is conjecture, but the chances are very good that it was night time session at Manhattan Towers in New York. Van Gelder preferred to do late night sessions in New York.

Eddie McFadden is seldom discussed, even in Jimmy Smith liner notes, but he was a splendid rhythmic guitarist. The "comp" of a guitarist in an organ group was different with Smith than what Bill Jennings did with Wild Bill Davis or Billy Butler did for Doggett. The strength of Smith's bass offset the need for a straight rhythm approach and the offbeat fills and riffs set by McFadden (and his predecessor Thornell Schwartz) created a style that youngsters such as George Benson and Pat Martino would further refine in the 1960s. McFadden is a fine soloist as well. Hear any of his spots here.

Donald Bailey settled in California in the middle 1960s and wickly became one of the top percussionists in Los Angeles. Jimmy Smith had drummers before and after Bailey, but rarely did he find one with Bailey's intelligence and swing. There is a certain discipline to playing with an organ group. If you get too loud or too busy, you ruin the groove. Listen sometime to Elvin Jones play with Larry Young and Grant Green. He plays quite differently than he did with John Coltrane.

Lou Donaldson had worked with Smith in the February 1957 sessions that produced Blue Note 1547, 1548, 1551 and 1552. Lou was a player who had much in common with Smith. Both men had deep blues roots in addition to their obvious affinity for modern jazz. They work beautifully together throughout this album. Perhaps the revived Blue Note label will reunite them!

The music offered here is typical fare for 1957 with a few notable exceptions. Hollerin' And Screamin' is the blues and has no connection with the Lockjaw Davis tune of the same name. Smith had recorded 'Round Midnight in 1956 with Gonzales singing (Babs and Smith had dissolved their business dealings a few months prior to this session. The Smith tune The Fight celebrates the split, but Smith was the firs to do Monk on organ. Cha Cha J is a bit unusual. It was issued on a 45, but not until more than a year later.

But this minutiae should not deter you from enjoying a master musician at the top of his game. Blue Note Jimmy Smith is the best Jimmy Smith.

-BOB PORTER

LT-1092

Jimmy Smith - On The Sunny Side

Released - 1981

Recording and Session Information

Manhattan Towers, NYC, August 25, 1957
Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.6 Little Girl Blue

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, July 15, 1958
Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.2 Bye Bye Blackbird
tk.3 September Song
tk.7 Since I Fell For You
tk.10 Just A Lucky So And So
tk.14 Ruby

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, June 16, 1959
Percy France, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.18 Apostrophe

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 25, 1960
Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.10 On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
On The Sunny Side Of The Street	D. Fields-J. McHugh	April 25 1960
Since I Fell For You	Buddy Johnson	July 15 1958
Apostrophe	Percy France	June 16 1959
Little Girl Blue	L. Hart-R. Rodgers	August 25 1957
Side Two
Bye Bye Blackbird	M. Dixon-R. Henderson	July 15 1958
Just A Lucky So And So	D. Ellington-M. David	July 15 1958
Ruby	H. Roemheld-M. Parish	July 15 1958
September Song	K. Weill-M. Anderson	July 15 1958

Liner Notes

JIMMY SMITH

During the years that Jimmy Smith recorded for Blue Note Records (February, 1956 to February, 1963), he led a working trio with Donald Bailey on drums and guitarist Thornel Schwartz, succeeded by Eddie McFadden and finally by Quentin Warren. Whatever the album concept in programming, whether trio or with a guest soloist or in a large jam session ensemble and whether live or in the studio, the organist's working unit would usually be the core of proceedings.

On those occasions when a guest drummer was present, it was most often Art Blakey. And on those occasions when a guest guitarist was called in, it was always Kenny Burrell. And while the organist's regular guitarists, most notably McFadden, were fine players, the encounters between Burrell and Smith were obviously meetings of peers, equal in the mastery of sound and technique and equal in creativity, feeling and versatility.

When the popularity of organ groups with guitar, drums and sometimes tenor saxophone hit its peak, many guitarists found it difficult to record or gig outside of this format. By this time, Burrell was already well established, and the bulk of his discography as a leader and a sideman features the more conventional modern jazz instrumentation with piano and bass. So his sessions with Smith give us a welcome opportunity to hear him in another context and perspective.

The nature of the organ and the power of its greatest player seem to inspire in the guitarist a drive and verve that is not evident elsewhere. And he loses none of his lyricism and tonal shadings in the process. Moreover, while guitar, piano and bass blend in sound, overlapping frequencies and interacting overtones, the organ cradles and highlights Burrell's rich, full, round sound.

Kenny Burrell's first appearance with Jimmy Smith was on a quartet date from February 12, 1957 with Lou Donaldson and Art Blakey completing the band. On August 25, 1957 and February 25, 1958 two all star sextet blowing sessions under Smith's leadership took place. The results were issued on The Sermon, House Party and Confirmation. From the first of those dates comes the trio performance of Little Girl Blue on this album.

On February 26, '58, Smith recorded four tunes (released on Softly As A Summer Breeze) with just Burrell and Philly Joe Jones. It might have been the successful results of that date that prompted the organist to go into the studio again with Burrell in a trio context on July 15, 1958. This time the drummer was Donald Bailey, and six tunes were done. Motorin' Along and Since I Fell For You were issued as a single, but only Motorin' Along appeared on the Home Cookin' album. The four heretofore unissued titles make up the second side on this album.

On May, 24, 1959, the same trio recorded nine tunes, of which only I Got A Woman (also on Home Cookin') has been released. A few weeks later on June 16, this trio with Percy France added on tenor sax taped six tunes, five of which completed the Home Cookin' album, while the sixth, Apostrophe, is issued on this album for the first time.

On April 25, 1960, Smith, Burrell and Bailey went into the studio for a marathon session made historic by the addition of Stanley Turrentine. The result was some of the finest, most soulful playing by all four men. The evidence is on two albums, Back To The Chicken Shack and Midnight Special. The one remaining performance from that day, On The Sunny Side Of The Street is contained herein.

Turrentine would, in less than two months, make his first Blue Note album, thus beginning a nine year association during which the tenor saxophonist recorded with Burrell, Horace Parlan, Horace Silver, Art Taylor and others as well as under his own name. He was reunited with Jimmy Smith one more time in 1963 on the Prayer Meetin' album.

Tenor saxophonist Percy France, a soulful, big toned player with a deliberate, yet heartfelt approach to improvisation, began his career in the forties in his native New York, working mostly in the swingtet genre. He was in Bill Doggett's group from 1951 to the beginning of 1956 and can be heard on many of that organist's King sessions. In the late fifties, he freelanced around New York, working with dance bands as well as jazz groups. At the time of this recording, he was working and recording with Sir Charles Thompson. In 1962, he, along with Kenny Burrell, appeared on organist Freddie Roach's debut album for Blue Note.

Apostrophe is France's line and provides a sly, up, bluesy platform for marvelous solos by him, Smith and Burrell. Listen also to Kenny's hard, funky comping, a trait that he does not often get the opportunity to display.

This version of On The Sunny Side Of The Street with Turrentine is reminiscent of Dizzy Gillespie's memorable version in that it is joyous and uplifting, but taken in a smooth, easy gait. No strain.

In fact, everything in this set conveys that feeling of cooking, but with no strain. Each tune finds its own pocket and lays there beautifully. This is the music of mature and soulful improvisers. Nothing to prove, but a lot to say. Listen to the groove that Jimmy finds for Ellington's Just A Lucky So And So and what he does with it.

Burrell's trademark lyricism steals the show on Little Girl Blues and September Song. His guitar sings in pear-shaped tones over Smith's cushion. Although Buddy Johnson's Since I Fell For You and Mitchell Parish's Ruby are most often thought of as ballads, they are given brighter, medium tempo treatment here. And Bye, Bye Blackbird, lest you think Miles had the last word, is a straight out burner.

In July, 1963, Jimmy Smith and Kenny Burrell collaborated on a Verve album entitled Blue Bash. Thereafter, Burrell stayed true to his original course, gigging and recording with bass, drums and sometimes piano. Commercial success carried Jimmy Smith into more and more orchestration and constricting material until it seemed as if he would merely read a new leadsheet and overdub his part. Of course, true jazz outlasted that and other commercial formulas. And Jimmy Smith is becoming active again and applying the principles that he helped to create and which made him the great artist that he is in the first place. In the meantime, his creative peak continues to live through his classic Blue Note recordings.

—Michael Cuscuna